The World-System (1460-1540): About

 

The Long 16th Century (1460-1540) was a period of history used by Ferdinand Braudel in his two volume History of the Mediterranean World.

On the World History Timeline (above), it covered the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. The Takeoff associated with GDP in the Industrial Revolution was in the future.

I have developed state space models for the period based on the Maddison Historical Statistics. The models, written in the R programming language using the dse package are available here and can be run in the Snippets browser here.

Links

• Feudalism
• Little Ice Age
• Economic History of Spain
• Decline of Spain
• List of Spanish Monarchs
• The Economy of Spain: World's Greatest Bubble
• Decline of Spain

Periodization

For the Quantitative Historian, selecting a time period over which to display statistical data or estimate models is an interesting problem with no solution. My approach has been estimate multi-models over whatever period seems appropriate to the purple (from a decade to 2000 years). A meta-analysis of the multi-models will have to be relegated to the future.

A General Periodization based on Centuries is provided in the Boiler Plate. In general, when I'm talking about a Long "Century," I estimate based on a given Century (for example, the Twentieth Century) and then project the models into the future (for example, the Twenty-first Century).

Starting with the Twentieth Century, here are some interesting references with links where you can download the free pdf files:

• The Age of Extremes (Wikipedia Article)
• The Long Twentieth Century, Giovanni Aright 
• The Age of Extremes, The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991, Eric Hobsbawm
• The Age of Capital, 1848-1875, Eric Hobsbawm
• The Age of Revolution, 1789-18484, Eric Hobsbawm
• The Age of Empire, 1875-1914, Eric Hobsbawm

Notes

World-system theory (WST) has developed a new language for analyzing the historical social, economic and political development of societies based on concepts from General Systems Theory (GST). The basic GST concept is that all systems are organized in hierarchies. Applying this concept to the world system, WST find nation states organized into core, semi-peripheral and peripheral countries that create an inter-regional and transnational division of labor.

The premise about hierarcical organization, the analysis of world-system history and the adoption of other GST concepts has led to a number of conjectures. For example, the system works to the benefit of the core countries that brings in the Marxist theory of Capitalist Exploitation. Or, the role of long-swings and business cycles in creating historical conjunctures where the system changes its orientation. Or, technological changes originate in the core and are used to further exploit the peripheral countries. Or, hierarchical imbalances generate world-system conflict that reaches a peak during system conjunctures.

WST has, understandably, not pursued every insight from GST. There is more to be done, particularly in the area of quantitative systems analysis and model building. My interest in this blog is to investigate world-system conjectures using quantitative models based on GST. In another blog, I am developing Causal Macrosystems using directed graphs (structural equation models) and state-space theory, quantitative tools drawn from GST. In yet another blog (Economic Bubble Machine), I am looking at economic cycles. This blog will use the insights from those blogs to develop empirical systems models of core, semi-peripheral and peripheral countries.

The kinds of questions I will be asking of these models are:

1. Is there a difference between the structure and time-series behavior of nation states based on their position in the world system?
2. Are models for failed states different form other peripheral country models?
3. Are technological parameters and technological change different based on world-system position?
4. How are effects transmitted, if at all, from core to semi-peripheral and peripheral countries?
5. Is there a difference in how systems react to economic crises based on world-system position?
6. etc.

I have been working with GST macro models since the mid-1970's. My first macro-model was published in my dissertation Instability and Late Nineteenth Century German Development. My goal is to put together the things that I have learned in the last forty years for the next generation of model builders.